[Ads-l] "old boy" = the devil + OED antedating of "Old Roger".

[Joel Berson]

      From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Friday, September 16, 2016 11:56 AM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "old boy" = the devil + OED antedating of "Old Roger".
   
...

<<JB: I have no clue to “cratten”, and simply hoped someone on the list might
have some idea.>>

    The more I think about this, the more convinced I am that the term used was
actually "cratter", and the sense was "old creature".

    You've looked at the original documents, or copies of them, Joel -- what
are the chances of a mistranscription of the manuscript, or a turned or
misplaced letter in the course of printing the material?  Over to you, there.
 :-)


JB:  I've looked only at the two 1890's transcriptions, and the manuscript Hugo provided to the list.  But in the manuscript I did not look further than the portion that used "old man", and I don't know whether Hugo's scrap shows "cratten".


Hugo wrote:

This looks like a picture of the original manuscript:

http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/texts/tei/swp?term=Abigail%20How&div_id=n69.5&chapter_id=n69

http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/archives/ecca/medium/ecca1157r.jpg

...
Robin


Joel
   

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